Percy POV
It didn't take us long to find the nearest titan. We quickly fought our way through the monsters that were now being pushed back rapidly by the gods and the renewed vigour of their children.
I was full of energy because of the sea water, while Nico seemed to be riding the high of being alive and a little bit of Poseidon's power; so it was easy enough to get through.
The titan that we found was Phoebe, the titaness of mystery was terrorising the demigods around her by releasing purple smoke into the air which created images and monsters. These smoke creatures would chase and attack any demigods near.
We quickly ran towards the fighting and found Hazel with a group of Hecate campers trying to dissipate the smoke with the use of mist. When I gave it some thought I realised that the titaness of mystery was probably using the mist to create these terrors.
But then again, they didn't seem to be able to alter it.
Once we reached them Nico asked, "How is it going?".
His sister shook her head. "Not great." was her reply. "The smoke is just a mist manipulation, but all we seem to be able to do is contain it, she is too strong." When I looked at the others, I could see that their foreheads were beaded with sweat from the effort.
"Ok, we're going in so please do what you can to keep it away from us while we try to stop her." I told the daughter of Pluto.
"I can't promise that we'll be able to do much, but we'll try." She replied, but her honey golden eyes were shining with determination and I believed in her.
With that Nico and I ran towards the smoke and plunged into it.
Within seconds of entering the smoke a Hydra appeared in front of us. It was clearly a creation from the titan but that didn't make it any less terrifying or any less likely to kill us.
We quickly split up so that the heads had to divide between us. "Have you got any fire?" I called out to the son of Hades.
"No." Was his only reply as the heads had begun to attack him. I quickly set to work on my own heads, trying not to cut any off. The fire had been a long shot, we would just have to kill it the hard way – by stabbing it through the heart.
I ducked beneath one of the heads and hurried to slam my sword against another that tried to bite me. I didn't get chance to pause as the other two heads were on me.
I was forced to roll backwards when one tried to trip me with its neck as two more tried to bite me. However, I escape them unharmed and was able to view all 5 heads again. The only comfort I had with that was that at least Nico was only fighting 4 – unless he was daft enough to cut them off.
One of the heads once again tried to bite me but I hit it with riptide. The force stunned the head for a moment before it was back on the offensive with the others.
That is what gave me my plan.
I remembered from my previous fights with Hydras that it took a few seconds to regrow the heads when they were cut off. That meant if I could daze a few and cut a few more heads off in quick succession I might have enough time to kill it. Unless I died of course.
I took a few steps back out of the heads' reach and prepared from my attack. After taking a deep breath I ran at the Hydra again.
This time I vaulted over the first head that came towards me and cut another one off. As soon as I hit the floor, I spun and smashed my blade against the first's skull as hard as I could.
Now I was on a time limit.
I ducked under the next head that attacked me but held up riptide so that it decapitated itself. The final two heads were sure in their attacks and came at me as one – believing that the others would have regrown soon.
One aimed for my feet, but I managed to hit it away, the other aimed at my head. I ducked under it and, once my sword was free again, cut it off.
All five heads were down but I could hear the sizzling that meant they were regrowing fast.
I jumped over the necks of the Hydra and dived. Riptide arced through the air and hit into the beast chest. Thankfully in sunk in and the heads on Nico's side let out a pained wail.
He continued to fight them, but one managed to break away and bore down upon me. It was mere inches from sinking its poisoned fangs into my leg when the whole creature vanished in a puff of smoke.
A sigh of relief passed my lips.
"That was idiotic!" Nico told me as he helped me to my feet.
"What would you have done?" I asked him. But I didn't receive a reply, instead he leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the lips. With that he turned and stalked down the gap that Hazel had created us in the mist, muttering something under his breath.
I shook my head, to clear my thoughts and hurried after him. I couldn't quite stop myself from thinking about how cute he was when he was annoyed though.
When I caught up to him, Nico was entering the eye of the storm. Phoebe turned to look at us, shock written all over her face. It was obvious that she didn't expect anyone to make it through her purple mist.
The corridor of air closed behind us as soon as we left its safety, and Phoebe allowed a small smile to slide across her face.
"Well done. I must say those mist users are better than I thought to get you here, but no matter I'll just kill you myself." The titaness's voice was smooth and her face was calm, but her eyes betrayed her true feelings.
It was clear that she wasn't a fighter as she was hiding within her mist and her amethyst eyes showed her fear of facing us. By now she knew who I was, and I was sure she knew of Nico too, so she knew that we were good fighters – and that scared her.
The titan shifted her staff into a defensive position and the mist stopped pouring out of the top. It seemed that unlike her granddaughter Hecate, she could not fight and use her magic, that would help us.
Nico took that as his signal and closed the distance between them, slashing towards her leg. The titan blocked his sword in time but missed the fact that I had capped riptide and had thrown a large ball of water at her.
The water hit her shoulder and knocked her off balance, allowing for Nico to cut at her other leg. I pushed my hands out and used the water to hold back her weapon, the son of Hades' weapon cut a thin line along the side of her leg.
However, he didn't not jump back in time to avoid being kicked in the stomach.
Nico was sent flying back towards me. I pulled the water back and used it to cushion the ground where he would fall, stopping him from getting hurt further.
Nico hurried to his feet as I dashed past him with riptide. Phoebe swung her staff to knock me down, but I had been expecting it and slid between her legs – popping up behind her to cut her leg again.
With us on either side of her, she clearly began to panic. She didn't know which way to look or how to defend against us both.
Nico chose to attack first, drawing her attention as she tried to block a vicious swing to her side. That allowed me to stab her in the back of the knee. Nico rolled back away from her as Phoebe howled out in pain and fell to one knee.
Without letting up I swung towards her back but she somehow managed to turn and block my strike. I kept up the flurry of attacks forcing her to have to block my strikes or be incapacitated.
In doing so I gave Nico time to run at her. When he got close enough the son of Hades jumped into the air with his sword raised as swung it with all his might at her neck.
She didn't even make a sound.
Her head slid from her shoulders and, after a second, her body fell the other way. Nico was on the other side of her, with his hands resting on the floor. His head was down and his black helmet obscuring his face.
I was about to go and check if he was ok when he lifted his head to look at me.
Golden spots of ichor were dotted across his face and down his armour. Nevertheless, he smiled at me and stepped over the disappearing body. I took my cloak and wiped the godly blood from his face.
"Stop babying me." He muttered crossly, batting my hand away. I sent him my goofy grin and turned to walk out of the fading mist.
"Thanks guys." Hazel said, meeting us on the other side of the purple haze. "I would've done it myself, but I had to help contain her mist or we would've been facing a full new army."
"You did something much more important than us." Nico told his little sister.
She blushed slightly and smiled. "I'm not sure about that but whatever. While you were in there, they pushed most of the army back into the trees, it's just the clearing up to do out here now."
I looked around and sure enough there were only a few monsters left, with a few groups of demigods already taking them out. Demeter was also on the field in her Roman form, Ceres, stopping any monsters from fleeing.
"I guess we should go into the trees then." I told Nico, but he was looking at me worriedly.
"Are you sure you want to go there? I'm sure they can..."
"Nico." I cut him off. "I've told you; I need to do this. I'll be ok." I said softer. He carried on looking at me with concern, but at seeing my determination gave up trying to stop me.
"What will you do?" He asked Hazel instead. She didn't answer but whistled and within seconds Arion appeared beside her.
'Brother, you aren't dead! I thought you were a fucking goner.' the horse nickered.
"Yeah, not dead." I agreed. "I see your language hasn't improved." He cursed at me a few more times, as if trying to prove my point, while Hazel mounted him. She said goodbye to us and then Arion took off at full speed.
Nico and I turned to follow them into the trees.
The fighting in the forest turned out to be an entirely different thing to that on the open field. The sound of clashing metal surrounded us, but it was rare that we saw anyone.
The canopy above us plunged the world into darkness, even though the sun was still high outside. It was clear that in this landscape the creatures of Tartarus had the advantage, but I was travelling with a child of the underworld so I was sure we would be ok.
Occasionally, a monster would leap out from the gloom and try to kill us, but thanks to Nico's powers he always knew well in advance. Even when the Minotaur had charged us, Nico was able to warn me in advance and killed him easily with a blade through the chest.
It didn't take us long to reach the camp of the titan army thanks to his abilities, but even then, we were not the first to get there. Someone had already blasted the gates off their hinges, and by the fire racing along the wooden walls my bet was on Zeus.
We entered cautiously but the wreckage we found stopped us in our tracks.
All around the camp, wooden buildings and tents were ablaze. The gods had made short work of flushing the monsters out into the open and there the battle was raging.
To the left I could see my father and Apollo attacking Atlas, who had been freed from his burden on Othrys. Around them a cluster of demigods were fighting off the hordes of monsters.
In front of me Jason, Leo and Frank were fighting off the Chimera and the Sphinx, it was a strange sight hearing the lion-woman screech out riddles and then attack when they didn't get answered. I was glad when Frank shut her up with a well-placed arrow.
To the right Athena and some children of Ares and Mars were fighting off a Drakon. It must have been the same one from the Battle of Manhattan that had to be killed by the war god's children or I was sure the goddess would've killed it alone.
In every other available space demigods were battling monsters of all kinds; cyclops, dracaenae, telkhines, hell hounds, dragons, empusa, harpies, griffins, Laestrygonian giants, stymphalian birds and even Lycaon's pack of werewolves.
All around was death and destruction.
I took all of this in in a second, as I knew we needed to help. "Come on," I nudged Nico. "He'll be in the middle."
I quickly took off running before the son of Hades could tell me to leave him to the gods. I had come this far and now I only had one aim. To kill the king.
Was I terrified? Yes. Did he know I was coming? Yes. Would he kill me? Probably.
But I knew that no one else could do it, and that wasn't just me being cocky. The prophecy stated that I had to save the world and I was pretty sure that meant from Kronos.
Besides, I had to do it. Because if I didn't do it then, I would probably never work up the courage to try again. It was now or never.
We hit the first line of monsters quickly. Working as a team we slashed and hacked our way through their ranks. Spinning, ducking, cutting, slashing, almost dying, saving someone else, but staying together.
It took longer than I would've liked to get through the monsters and to the buildings. As soon as we could we hid behind one, even though it was on fire, to catch our breath.
I scanned over Nico. He had a bust lip, a cut on his right arm and was limping slightly from being thrown into the ground by a giant. But overall, he was ok, nothing that ambrosia couldn't fix.
I knew that I wasn't in good shape either. I could feel my head throbbing against the inside of my helmet, there was a gash in my armour that had a trickle of blood coming through and there was a small arrow wound on my leg.
Nico reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of ambrosia, splitting it and giving half to me. I ate it greedily and sighed in relief as some of the pain left my body, I also pulled some water from the ground and let that slide under my armour to heal my abdomen and used what remained to further heal Nico's arm.
"Percy, we should let someone else deal with him. The gods are here." he urged as I worked.
I stayed silent until I was done and then let out a sigh. "I want to let the gods have him as much as you do, if not more." I told him. "But you know the prophecy, you know I have to." I leaned my head against his. "I won't ask you to come with me, you can stay here."
He pulled away, making me have to catch myself. I looked up to see him horrified. His black eyes were darker with anger and his lips were pressed tight. "If you think you are going without me, then you are wrong." he told me sternly. "I'm with you until the end."
I smiled at him. I should've known he would never let me leave him behind. "Come on then Ghost King." I grabbed his hand and led him through the labyrinth of buildings to where I knew the titans stayed.
By the time we made it to the center of the camp the tents and buildings were mainly just charred remains on the ground, at very least they had collapsed. So it was obvious when we found where Kronos was.
In the center of the burning wreckage was a huge stone building. Being stone made is impervious to the blaze that had lit up the camp and therefore it was the only solid structure left standing.
Some may have thought that the titan king was being cowardly hiding in his rooms while his family and his army were out fighting. But I knew better.
The king knew that he was strong, but a fighter was always stronger when he fought on his own terms. By waiting in his rooms Kronos had made us go to find him, that gave him the advantage.
And, while we had been out fighting non-stop for hours, he had rested in his rooms. He would be in perfect condition. He knew that it didn't matter if his army died, if he survived, they would reform in time and he could rule.
He was not a rash or cowardly king. He was intelligent and cunning.
That would make him almost impossible to stop.
From what we could see the building had only one entrance and, due to the fire, we couldn't even approach that secretly. So together we walked towards it with our heads held high and our swords out. If Kronos was to know we were here, then let him see confidence.
But it was a façade. Inside I was a mess of fear and worry, I wanted nothing more than to turn and run. With every step I took dread settled deeper in me.
I remembered the feeling of his blades cutting deep into my skin. I was acutely aware of the fact that my body was littered with scars from him, even one on my face from the first week of my capture. It ran from my hairline to my jaw on the left side of my face, it was a white line after over 100 years, but it would be a constant reminder of him.
And then there was his branding on my back. A secret that I had managed to keep from Nico for all that time, the jaggered black words 'Property of Kronos'. He would be disgusted when he eventually saw them.
I was a fool to think I could win. Kronos had been the bane of my life since I was 12 years old, why would it stop now?
Then there was a faint squeeze of my hand. Nico. The only light in my current life, the one who kept me sane. He believed in me so much that he had joined me on this suicide mission. It was only the pressure of his hand against mine that kept me going.
I didn't need to believe in myself, because he believed in me. And I believed in him.
When we are 10 meters from the doors there was a small cough behind us. We both whipped around, letting go of each other as we did so that I could throw my sword into my preferred hand, and levelled our blades.
However, when we saw who it was, we lowered them quickly and knelt.
"My lady, I apologise." I said looking at the floor.
"Oh, get up both of you." Hestia told us, irritated. "You don't have to bow to me, you've deserved that." We both rose to our feet, glad to see a friendly face.
"If I may, why are you here?" Nico asked her. "I thought you were a peaceful goddess."
"I am." She replied with a smile. "But that doesn't mean that I can't help out two deserving heroes. I am supposed to be watching the wards around Olympus with the others, but my father awaits you inside and you need all the help you can get. I have a feeling that the other gods may be too preoccupied to come and help."
A bolt of fear ran through me at the confirmation that we would be alone. I had been hoping that my dad or someone would come to help us, but no such luck. "I can give you some strength," Lady Hestia continued "but sadly that is all."
With that the goddess of the hearth stepped forwards and placed a hand on each of our chests. Instantly I felt heat rush into me, it was as if fire was coursing through my veins – but a good fire.
The heat burned away all of the aches and pains I had and replaced them with strength. Hestia was pouring her godly power into us.
Eventually, the goddess took her hand away and I opened my eyes. The goddess was grinning at us and, when I turned to look at Nico, I saw he was glowing slightly orange – the same colour as Hestia's eyes.
"How do you feel?" She asked us.
"Amazing, better than ever." I told her honestly.
If it was possible her smile grew. "Good, this should at least give you a chance against him. I'm sorry I can't help more, but I must get back to watch the wards or he'll just flash up there." She ended sadly.
"Thank you, Lady Hestia." Nico said with a bowed head.
The last thing she said was, "Good luck" before she burst into a column of flame.
Nico turned towards me; his face serious. "Come on, let's go kill the son of a bitch." With that statement we turned and walked the last few meters to the door and went inside.